8.09.2008

Beyonce's latest L'Oreal advertisment has really struck a chord with the light-skinned/dark-skinned black divide. We all know celebrities get photoshopped, but putting my sentiments about that aside, I agree that "white washing" Beyonce is going way too far.

I remember for a short time people had issues with Angelina Jolie being "ethnicized" for some movie role. That was controversial, but this is beyond controversial to me. This is just embittering:

Anyone who saw the Féria hair color ad in this month's Elle (pictured, left) might have had to do a double-take to make sure it was really Beyoncé, and not the long-lost twin of the light-skinned model on the product's box. Today, in a NY Post report cheekily headlined "O, RÉALLY?," L'Oréal reps deny altering the singer's features and skin tone. The chairman of the media-monitoring committee of the National Association of Black Journalists even chimed in, arguing that "magazines have to be sensitive to perceptions that light-skinned African Americans are more acceptable."

By now, most of us are used to pretty much all commercial images of celebrities getting the Photoshopped-into-oblivion treatment. But shouldn't there be some sort of line here? We don't know exactly what or who is responsible -- severe makeup? odd lighting? digital alteration? too much time indoors? -- for making Beyoncé practically unrecognizable. Whatever the culprit, whitewashing a well-known face in the interest of selling hair color (that is wrong for 'yoncers anyway) takes the "anything for a great shot" argument a little too far.

What do you think -- does the ad offend you, or is this sort of "optimized" commercial image safe in the plasticine land of Fictionarnia we've all come to generally accept at this point, and therefore unworthy of a second thought?

It's possible that Beyonce comes out lighter if you use flash when taking a picture. But come on, this is an advertisement for L'Oreal...they're not stupid, they know exactly what they were doing and they need to fess up.

My one question is, did Beyonce get a say in the use of this final picture? I wouldn't necessarily give her the benefit of the doubt in all this. I mean, she's a huge celebrity, I can't imagine that she'd allow them to publish the photo without her final approval...but what do I know.

Double Consciousness is a term that comes from the pen of W. E. B. Du Bois which was made popular in his book The Souls of Black Folk. For Du Bois it meant “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” and of having two identities, one being American and the other being a person of color. “Two warring ideals in one dark body.” The title is also a pun on the fact that the two blog founders/editors are of different ethnicities which obviously effects the way they perceive the world. Jack Stephens is white (three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Guatemalan) and C is Pilipino. Despite this fact they are both unified in their thought on critiquing white privilege in American society and in combating its effects on people of color.